Lunch Bunch: Come for the fajitas; stay for the margaritas

Lunch Bunch/Times Record News
The No. 2 Lunch Combo at El Refugio includes a taco, enchilada, rice and beans.

Lunch Bunch/Times Record News
The fajitas ($9.99) at El Refugio come with a side of fajita fixin's, including cheese, sour cream and guacamole.

Lunch Bunch/Times Record News
The Estela Platter comes with grilled beef or chicken fajitas with stir-fry vegetables on a bed of fideo with a cup of beans.

Lunch Bunch/Times Record News
The Allison Plate at El Refugio on Seymour Highway includes quesadillas and flautas.

Another day, another Mexican restaurant opens in Wichita Falls.

Not that the girlfriends and I have a problem with that. We recently discovered a homey little neighborhood eatery, El Refugio, on Seymour Highway that's sure to get more of our business.

It's unavoidable that the lunch menu at El Refugio looks like those of most other Mexican restaurants. Enchiladas, beans, rice, tacos and tamales in almost any order you like are what most people, especially those on a tight budget and timeline, look for. Lunch plates average about $7 or $8, and the quality is good.

El Refugio's homemade salsa, a benchmark element for one of my buddies, has a nice fresh taste, a little bit of cilantro and mild heat. Those of us who have had the roofs of our mouths almost melted with hotter salsas appreciate this.

Burritos, served plated, come with a choice of ground beef, shredded chicken or beef or chicken fajita meat. Prices range from $7 to $9 for the fajita version. My choice of the Burrito Loco was highlighted by a creamy green sauce made with what I believe to be roasted poblano peppers.

Unable to hold out for the entrees, one of the girlies ordered the Allison Plate ($7), a quesadilla and flauta combo served with guacamole and sour cream. The ground beef quesadillas were nice, and the guacamole freshly prepared, but the flautas surprised us all. Having halfway expected to see something frozen, we were thrilled that, instead, they were hand-rolled with plenty of white-meat chicken inside.

Looking for something a little more upscale, one of the buddies tried the Estella Platter ($8), a saute of chicken or beef, bell peppers, squash and other vegetables served on fideo with a side of beans.

The fideo turned out to be regular spaghetti topped with the meat and veg saute and was good enough but not what was expected. Traditionally the pasta for this dish is much finer and cooked with tomatoes, onion and spices. And sadly, the beans never came.

Another Lunch Buddy went with the beef fajita platter ($9.99), which was OK, she said, but not spectacular. The beef was not what was expected, which is skirt steak. It looked like perhaps very thinly sliced round steak or a similar cut and didn't have the strong marinated flavor you would expect from a fajita platter.

And Lunch Buddy No. 4 decided to go traditional and ordered Lunch Combo No. 2 off the lunch menu ($5 and some change), which included an enchilada (beef, cheese or chicken with a queso, sour cream or chili sauce on top), crispy beef taco, beans and rice. She went with the cheese enchilada with a chili sauce. She said the taco meat could have used more flavor, and the cheese enchilada, too, could have been cheesier. But for the price, it was a pretty good value.

One of the downsides was that the tortillas weren't homemade, the one thing that really endears us to Mexican food restaurants.

Overall we really liked El Refugio. Owners have spent a lot of time and effort into making what was originally a Dairy Queen into a cool and inviting place for customers, even in the current heat wave.

What some might find most attractive is a large sign in the window advertising a Saturday night fajita special that comes with a free margarita!